Don't toss your Apple Watch away if you get a hard fall warning, like Steven Spielberg did...
Director Steven Spielberg was giving a talk when his Apple Watch suddenly said he'd taken a hard fall. His reaction to the false alarm ended up making matters worse.
Pressing the onscreen "X" will cancel any sort of false alarm on the Apple Watch.
Although false warnings from an Apple Watch are rare, they are not unknown -- and can sometimes happen at inopportune moments. In this case, the renowned filmmaker was in the middle of giving a talk about his earliest feature film.
When the Apple Watch on his wrist beeped and displayed the warning, Spielberg should have simply pressed the on-screen "X" to cancel it. Instead, eager to resume his talk, he removed it, and dropped it on the ground.
"I'm not going to press the SOS [button]," Variety reported him as telling the audience. "I'll pick it up later." Shortly thereafter, the Apple Watch -- having not received any response from its owner -- began an audible countdown before calling emergency services.
Spielberg then quickly retrieved it, and turned off the alert.
When it does not receive a response from someone who has actually taken a hard fall, or been in a vehicle accident, it will make an audible final attempt to get a response from the wearer before calling emergency services and the owner's primary contact in the Health app.
The Fall Detection feature was first introduced with the Apple Watch Series 4, and has been credited many times for saving people after an accident, calling for help when they cannot respond.
False alerts can happen when the Apple Watch detects it is moving rapidly, then stops suddenly. The device has had occasions where it falsely report crashes or falls during rollercoaster rides, and false hard falls or crashes while people skied, though Apple has since worked to reduce the number of incorrect alerts.
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Comments
Then a week later I slipped and fell on some black ice in the park... and the Watch did nothing.
It's good, but not perfect. I'd rather it err on the side of a possible accident, and be able to cancel the alert.
On the other hand, it helped save my life when my watch detected I’d crashed on my motorcycle and was unconscious. I’ll never be without it!
With that said, I look forward to seeing more AI in our life in terms of greater intelligence that prevents such things from happening in the first place. In other words, a watch that can actually observe the situation (not merely shock and orientation) to determine if someone is truly in jeopardy or just aggressively giving a speech. To me, this is the promise of AI that we should all be looking forward to.
Even though I didn't hit the ground nor was unconscious, dazed, nor confused, I count this as a positive alarm. Having Fall Detection enabled since my Series 4 Watch, this is the only alarm I've ever received.
There are two serious stumbles where the Watch didn't sound the alarm. I don't know if Apple would feel the alarm should have sounded or not. I didn't count that as a bad fall but who knows. I'll say I believe the FD was very accurate though maybe not perfect in my case.
The problem with Apple's implementation is when it goes off, you tend to panic because you don't want to call emergency services or your friends unnecessarily. And, you have to scroll to see your other options (if you don't notice the x), like I didn't fall, and I'm Ok. I would prefer that it just gave you two options that were both visible on the first screen: the first would be a green button, I'm Ok, and the second would be a red button for SOS. Obviously, if you are not Ok, you don't have to (or may be unable to) push a button, so I don't know why that has to be the only choice visible. I generally like the feature, just feel it could be made a lot clearer.
In the meantime, I take the watch off when I'm digging, and try to remember when I'm playing Frisbee, but I've left the feature on just in case I have a real emergency.
Other than that, I've had it go off when I was running a chainsaw with the accompanying vibrations.
But I was more amused after I got a loud noise alert when I sneezed a couple of months ago.